Is there a real estate crisis?

Since at least 2014, the country’s real estate developers have been warning of troubling times ahead. The sector slowdown had begun much earlier, as Executive reported in its October 2018 real estate special report, and sector stakeholders have, for several years now, expressed hope that the next year would be better—repeating this mantra, as if speaking the words out loud would bring about the positive change they have been seeking. By definition, real estate is always cyclical, so the question is: Where are we on the down leg of this cycle—still declining, at the nadir, or nearing an upward turn? No to low confidence Confidence to invest in Lebanese real estate reached a low point in 2018. The sector was negatively affected by political uncertainty and economic distortions due to monetary interventions by Banque du Liban (BDL), Lebanon’s central bank. But the formation of a new government has the potential